A/N: Fondest greetings to you all. This is me completely re-writing my old concept 'Phantom' and replacing it with this new version, Theater Ghost. The big change is that I'm not going to piddle around too much on his childhood and intend to cut right to the chase. A few notes, just to clarify some things to come.

1) This story is primarily based on the original Leroux version, meaning Erik doesn't have a really bad sunburn, he's a corpse. While I will have many allusions to the musical, all characters will at least have the physical descriptions found in that book.

2) As of yet, the only character I plan to permit to retain his original name is Erik. All other characters will have new names that should still be recognizeable. If in some cases you find the personality, too, to be drastically different, that is either my interpretation of the times the story takes place in or it is intended to be closer to the Leroux version (for example, ALW!Meg is sweet and blonde. Leroux!Meg is brunette and snotty.) Some original characters like Merina are likely to take on attributes of various book characters.

3) The big reason I finally got around to re-writing this was my realization that many, many interpretations (many of them to be considered fanfiction) of Phantom have been published. Being the vain creature that I am, I've decided to start over and treat this more like a novel than a fanfiction. With hope, it will produce a more satisfying story. Of course, this new approach means that I ask for thorough reviews. While I adore what flattery and congratulations I can get (it is, after all, what keeps this vain author writing), genuine concern for the story's direction or the catching of potentially catastrophic mistakes would be most welcome.

I remain, readers, your obedient servant.

P.O.S.

Prologue: Memories of an Ugly Man

One truth that has ever been clear to me throughout my life is that I am ugly

One truth that has ever been clear to me throughout my life is that I am ugly. I have often wondered if that is why my mother abandoned me. In my youth, I thought about her often and have since decided that she was poor, and I was too unexpected and too utterly ugly for her love. How could I have asked for her love, when each time she might have held me, she would have touched the cold, dead skin of a corpse. To look at my face would have been to look at the face of a monster, nose-less, golden-eyed, completely made from the stuff of nightmares. I despair that she could not love me, that she abandoned me at the step of a random stranger, but I can no more hate her than I can blame her. At times, I even wish to thank her, for she chose for me a mother perfect beyond all shadow of a doubt.

Merina Dowe was my mother, if not by blood than by soul. She took me in and raised me despite my hideous visage. She named me Erik after her father. She nursed my shrunken, weak body to health and held my hand as I took my first steps. Most importantly, she loved me.

She tried to raise me to love myself as she did, despite my irreversible deformities, but her efforts were thwarted by my own fear of mirrors. Some time in my infancy, I first encountered the mystical, reflective surface of the bathroom mirror. Ever since, my nightmares were haunted by the pale, dead creature, with horrible translucent skin and sinister, glowing eyes, its twisted mouth incapable of a true smile. I screamed and sobbed at that first sighting, shielding my eyes with my tiny hands, my whole form trembling as I feared for my very life. In her pity, Merina fashioned me a mask. I still remember it. It was simple and blue, sewn in layers of thin cotton, covering all but my lips, with two ribbons with which I clumsily taught myself to tie knots.

I wore it until it fell to rags. I could not remember why I loved the mask so, or why I did not dare to approach a mirror without it, but I stubbornly refused to enter the bathroom until Merina had mad me a new one.

How I loved those masks in my childhood. My mother made dozens for me, and I adored switching them out to suit my mood. I was a lion one minute, a dragon the next, prancing through our small, cluttered apartment with my toys and imaginary friends, slipping into the role defined by whatever mask I wore at the time.

I was not a lonely child, or perhaps I was lonely but could no longer feel it. In any case, I was not permitted to associate with other children, for even in this age of tolerance and acceptance, children were as blindly cruel as they had been in the dark ages. I had precious few encounters with children, and fewer still that did not leave me feeling small and eternally ugly. I found, in short time, that I could not bear to watch the television, for I knew the truth behind the would-be smiling faces on the screen.

When Christmas came, I sat indoors with my grandfather and mother, aunts and uncles, sipping hot cocoa and listening to Christmas carols over the radio while they spoke of adult things. They always insisted that they loved my company, that they couldn't share me with the other children, but only my mother and grandfather could meet my eyes. They alone were not unnerved by the golden color or by the false cheer in their own voices, because they alone knew that I was as aware of the truth as I was aware of their kindness. I knew I was safe with them, so I sat and drank cocoa and sometimes coffee and listened while the sound of the carols intertwined with their low, adult chatter. I was never unhappy.

As I began to mature, I grew to accept that my body, deformed as it was, was not as fragile as it appeared. Though my heart was weak (the family physician diagnosed this as another deformity), the rest of my body was stronger and faster than the norm, and my mind was sharper. My mother, baffled, began to teach me beyond my own years, searching for something, anything that could satisfy my starving mind.

I only knew peace in the presence of the arts. Painting, sculpture, dance, architecture; what I could not practice myself, I admired from the pages of secondhand books, my heart swelling to see such beauty, such loveliness that was everything I was not. But more than the statues and pottery, tapestries and churches, steps and monologues, I loved the music. From the Christmas carols humming through a spice-laden den to the classical strings of a symphony, traditional folk music to love ballads, even the generic, ill-written tunes of the mainstream filled my heart until I thought it would burst.

I learned to sing at an early age and often harmonized with the songs one the radio, entertaining my mother while she wrote the children's books that sustained us. When a song had no lyrics, I wrote my own and sang them for her. My fondest memories involve my sitting by the window next to my mother's computer, feeling the sun on my back, the smooth fabric of my mask shifting as I opened my mouth, my throat, my heart, and created the one true beauty I knew.

After my voice had begun to mature, I withdrew from these private performances and focused more on my own music, my own lyrics, imagining the day I could sing them without the fear of my voice cracking as it changed. Even so, I dared to sing out and unashamed once, on my mother's birthday. I had chosen her favorite instrumental pieces and, along with songs of my own composition, I fabricated an entire musical evening for her. She sat silently on the sofa as I stood before her, opening my heart as I had so many times before. My voice cracked, and at times I feared I sounded more like a frog than a musician, but I closed my eyes and sang on, pretending I was a grand tenor in the opera, not some twelve-year-old boy with a mask and an ugly 'co-ack!' to his voice.

The performance ended and, slowly, I felt myself drifting back to reality as though I rose from molasses, my eyes opening slowly as I took in the sight of my mother.

Her bright, blue eyes swam with tears and her long, thin hands covered her mouth. My spirits fell and I rushed to her side, certain that my heart would break at any moment. I placed my hands on her shoulder and apologized over and over again, desperate to know what I had done wrong.

She turned to me and shook her head. Beneath the tears, a brilliant smile broke out over her face.

"Oh, Erik," she breathed, clumsily wiping the tears from her face. "I've never heard anyone sing like that in my entire life."

And, thus, I learned that I was not just gifted. In this one talent, I was extraordinary.

o-o-o